Is Food the Enemy or Are We? (Part One)

So much, too much, of my life has been spent obsessing over food and what to have and how much to have and horribly regretting things after I have them and then beating myself up.  Not fun! I am so tired of the fight, but who am I fighting with?  Am I fighting with my will power alone or is there a much more virulent predator attacking my relationship with food? 

I grew up, like so many of us 80’s and 90’s kids, on the fads of the time.  There were scores of Doritos, Fritos, Coke and Pepsi products and I am pretty sure one of my closest friends as a child was Little Debbie.  My parents went through many different fad diets while I was growing up as well.  My most fond, (being very facetious!) was the turkey diet we went on.  Every night we had some sort of turkey.  I came to think they could mold this food product into whatever shape you wanted and you could have a plate of turkey burger with mashed turkey and a side of turkey beans.  If you were ever so lucky you could have a turkey shake to accompany your dinner.  Yes, I am kidding, but it is what it felt like.  In high school I started eating at friends houses and started to see new worlds of eating.  Some seemed more careless than ours and others seemed more sophisticated and had vegetables I had never even heard of.  I was on the high school gymnastics team all four years and so exercise became a regular part of my life at that time.  Let me tell you, walking around in a leotard through your high school years, when you were not blessed with the pencil thin figures that some others on your team had, could wear on ones self esteem a little bit.  I would sit and listen to others say how many calories they took in at lunch after I had just consumed a white bagel stick, covered in large crystals of salt, with two cream cheese tubs and an ice cream cookie (Good choice Nellie!). Thank goodness I worked out two hours a day!  I think it was my senior year that I started looking at food and all of the other healthier options and varieties that were out there and realized the impact food has on the body. 

When I went off to college it was dorm food and parties, which is a bad combo as is.  I had a couple of dear high school friends that were vegetarian and I had contemplated it before, but my burgers, prime rib, steaks on the grill, bacon and chicken were too much to give up.  I took an animal rights course my freshman year at IU.  I don’t remember anything about the class except for the prof’s very Tom Selleck mustache and a video we watched.  It was one of those hidden camera, behind the scenes of a slaughter house movies and I was so caught by surprise.  I had no idea, and had never before stopped to think, where my food came from.  Not only was it inhumane what they were doing, but the facility was disgusting and there was no telling what was safe and what wasn’t.  I was in shock.  That night, October 31^st 1996, I sat at the table in my dorm cafeteria staring at “Chicken Surprise” (no joke) and didn’t know how this animal had gotten to my dinner plate.  I covered it, pushed it away and got some cereal for dinner that night.  I decided I was a vegan.  Oh yes, not a vegetarian, but a vegan.  Was this a smart choice to do when I knew nothing about it?  Probably not, but I wasn’t about to eat any of that “stuff”.  When I went home and told my mom before Thanksgiving dinner….  hmmm… ..let’s just say things didn’t go well, but I was sticking to it.  I went a couple of years with rice milk and vegan cheese and lots of cereal, but it was when I was 20 and cheesy potatoes were put in front of me at a Christmas dinner that I fell off my vegan wagon and ate a sickening amount of those potatoes.  They were good, but ugh…  I felt horrible afterwards.  I had an idea in my mind that I probably would not be a vegan forever, but vegetarian? Yes!  And I have for all these years.  Through pregnancy, breast feeding (sometimes multiple children) and everything I never had a problem with keeping up my iron or protein levels.  My only problem was WHAT I was eating.  Cheese consumed my life!  I would buy this nacho cheese from Kroger down the street and go through bins every few days.  I would visit taco bell so often that they knew our names and pizza was had at least a couple times a week.  Big Ten Special from Pizza Express baby!  Needless to say the weight was gained, the self esteem was lowered and, long story short, I yo-yo’s through the next decade of my life.  Yes, I had pregnancies in there too, but there was a time that I thought cheese fries and a chocolate malt were ideal for lunch any day.  I started running and taking care of myself a little better, but food was always there and the imitation food started to replace real foods.  I knew I would have to grow up at some point, but when you grow up with certain foods and then marry the guy who has done this with you since you were 18 it is hard to break old habits!

(A friend and myself in my crazy college bedroom eating a bag of doritos and drinking wine, perfect college combo!)

(Brian and I at our college graduation)

(Me in 2001)

(2002)

(2006)

(2006)

(Twin pregnancy 2007)

It wasn’t fun, I had a closet of clothes size 4 to 18.  I had heart, digestive and infertility issues through those years as well.  But, what I consumed was all about to change.  In my next blog I will tell you about our first food overhaul that led to the world of organics and why. 

Are you stuck in the college life eating habits that should have been gone a while ago.  Is it time you looked at your diet and started educating yourself on what you are really eating?  It is mind blowing what you find when you just take the time to look and what is even more amazing is the brutality you are putting your body, the planet and the economy through when you just sit back and ignore the “super market games”.